Avian myeloblastosis virus (AMV) induces an acute myeloblastic leukemia in birds and is capable of transforming myeloid hematopoietic cells in vitro. AMV is a replication-defective virus and therefore requires a helper virus for replication.
Some of the features of this virus include: it is replication-defective; it is able to transform cells of hemopoietic origin (except fibroblast cells) together with cells of connective tissue origin; and finally it can induce leukemia in the chicken after short periods of latency.
Previous experiments have shown that after infection of hemopoietic cells with AMV, it is possible to obtain continuous lines of nonadherent transformed cells that can permanently release infectious virus. These cells are also found to carry distinctive markers of myeloid differentiations.